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Legislative interests of the county were relayed to State Sen. Bill Montford and State Rep. Alan Williams by several county officials and residents at a public meeting Jan. 19 in the county commission
chambers.

Commission Chairperson Brenda Holt spoke for the BOCC, saying there was a need for infrastructure funding related to municipal buildings such as the courthouse and voiced concern over how Florida’s Medicaid Share of Cost program could create a financial burden for Gadsden County residents.

Crime prevention specialist Kevin Gilpin estimates half of Americans to have been targeted by identity theft in the past two years.

Gilpin has been working in crime prevention for 35 years, and he says never has one crime impacted so many people as identity theft already has. He thinks the number of people affected by the crime will only increase in the future.

About 40 Gadsden County students earned their CPR certification alongside 100 more students from five counties across the state on Florida State University’s campus Friday morning as apart of a program aimed at encouraging students from rural communities to not only become doctors, but to serve as physicians in their native communities.

Havana hosted its 30th annual celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day with a parade that led directly to the steps of New Jerusalem Missionary Baptist Church, where the celebration took to its second phase in the form of a commemoration service.
The parade began at approximately 10 a.m., led by a group of pastors and Gadsden County Commissioner Eric Hinson, who acted as grand marshal for the parade, through the residential streets of Havana.

The decision of whether or not to have a recall election for a Quincy commissioner’s seat now rests in a judge’s hands.
Commissioner Micah Brown, of District 2, was notified Jan. 7 via letter that an adequate number of signatures on the petition requesting his removal from the commission had been verified.
The letter states 186 signatures were verified, surpassing the required minimum of 119. It also says at least 15 percent of the qualified voters in that district were certified to have signed the petition.

Priscilla Stephens Kruize has high ambitions for the Black Heritage Museum in Quincy.
She was raised in a segregated school system, arrested many times while protesting for civil rights in the ‘60s, and spent more than a decade living abroad in Africa and Europe. She now wants to bring pieces of the cultures she was privileged to experience to the children of Quincy.

The search for two missing men believed to have drowned Saturday in Lake Talquin when their boat capsized ended Sunday afternoon when divers recovered the second victim’s body.
Elohondro Gennie, 38, and David Brown, 49, drowned while on a fishing excursion with Antonio Stephens, 36. Gennie’s body was found Sunday morning and Brown’s body was found that afternoon, both by Florida Fish and Wildlife (FWC).
According FWC spokeswoman Becca Nelson, none of the men were wearing life jackets, or personal floatation devices.

In front of family members, drug counselors, county officials, and the Sheriff, 13 county inmates received certificates commemorating their graduation from the drug education portion of the jail’s Re-Entry Program Monday afternoon.
Annie Britt-Berry led the drug education program, appointed by Sheriff Morris Young to execute and add to his own plan. During the graduation, Britt-Berry expressed her understanding for the graduates’ plight by admitting to being a recovering drug addict herself.

Florida now allows same-sex couples the right to marry, becoming the 36th state to do so.
Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi is reported to still be appealing the decision to allow same-sex marriage in state and federal courts.
Circuit Court Judge Sarah Zabel, of Miami, declared the ban on gay marriage unconstitutional in a July 2014 ruling.